


gardens

by khalasaar



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, BREAKDOWNS!, F/F, F/M, I mean...sorta, Making Out, Tattoos, ahahhahaaha #killme, broken!maya, broken!riley i guess, cursing, i like this but it HURTS, there's a lot of crying. i know. i don't care, um what else is in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khalasaar/pseuds/khalasaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no roses without thorns, which is exactly why Riley loves sunflowers so much.</p><p> </p><p>(Or: Maya is a little broken and a lot in love with her best friend, and her head can only get messed with so much until a little broken gets a lot dangerous.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	gardens

**Author's Note:**

> sliiight au where there was no texas and riley and lucas got together after charlie (& some other boys) came after her. otherwise the same as far as i can remember.
> 
> riley's poem is a stanza of "you are jeff" by richard siken.
> 
> ALSO there is a little tiny easter egg from one of my previous fics in here. tell me if you can find it! :)

After Farkle, and Lucas, and Charlie, there are a flood of boys from the eighth grade: all of them bright-eyed and smiling, tripping over themselves with the hope that Riley will say yes, when they inevitably ask her to give herself over. She has to. If they bring more roses, more chocolates, more heartfelt sentiments than the last one. Which, eventually, becomes a feat hard to achieve. And it never works: Maya is always there at Riley’s side when it happens, watches as she lets one down easy, and then the next, and the next, still smiling in that pretty Riley way, just to ease their pains a bit - boy after boy after boy, every one of them wedging the crack between her and Riley a terrifying fraction wider.

At first, Maya takes an interest in her competition. When the first few appear, she _does_ feel the stab of fear in her chest - and an uneasy trickle of insecurity, of dread. Those few moments that Riley considers make Maya feel like she’s dropping through the floor.

(So does seeing Lucas. For months and months, he doesn’t ask, but Maya knows that when he does: game over.)

But then the refusal comes, it always does, and Maya is always stunned by the depth of her relief. 

Thankfully, only the first four affect her like that. When the fifth shows up, grinning slyly and with violets in his hands, Maya’s heartbeat barely even spikes. After that, it only gets easier. She’ll look them up and down, maybe give them some fleeting encouragement, and snicker when they slink away, defeated. There is, of course, a little bit of warmth in her heart for them. But Riley wouldn’t get it, and God knows Maya doesn’t want to explain, so she keeps it buried, and tries to keep her spirits high.

After a while, Maya stops learning their names. She stops thinking about the color of their hair (seeing if it ever matches hers) and about the dates they would take Riley, on if she ever accepted. She stops looking for them in the hallways, to see how they’re doing. She stops asking why Riley always says no, because she always answers with a shrug and that guilty smile, like she doesn’t really want to tell, like Maya would never understand, anyway. 

What she never stops doing is correcting the boys who throw themselves at Riley’s feet. Sunflowers, not roses, amateur mistake. No Reese’s, she’s allergic to peanuts. No tickets to movies more violent than the Avengers. She watches them file up, never leaving Riley’s side, and thinks about what _she_ would do, if she ever got up the courage to offer herself up like the entire male population of their class. How perfect it would be.

Sometimes, Riley catches her eye in the middle of these thoughts, breaking into that dreamboat smile, and Maya thinks about how terrible it would be to lose that: starts to feel the guilt knotting itself in her chest, and afterwards, she always gets closer to thinking maybe _love_ is a synonym for _silence_.

 

***

 

“That’s a cute skirt.”

“Thanks,” Maya says happily. She smooths a hand over the metallic fabric, down to where it cuts off across her thigh, rippling in the light of the dining room. She and the Matthews are eating together before family game night, the first time in a long time that Maya is able to really relax, to feel like a person again. And the compliment helps. Riley bumps her shoulder affectionately - they picked it out together - and then shovels a forkful of mac and cheese in her mouth. “From Demolition.”

“Of course it is,” Topanga laughs. “It’s beautiful. A little short, though.”

Maya looks down self-consciously. In the back of her throat, the urge to talk is swarming up, as it always does. It feels a little like heartburn. The thing that makes her want to say - _Well, that was on purpose. Boys don’t look at me any other way. Did you know your daughter could’ve had sixteen boyfriends by now? How else am I supposed to keep up?_

Instead, she meets Topanga’s eye, smiles fakely, shrugs. “I’ve got legs, why not use ‘em?”

Topanga stares her down, as if she can see exactly what is going on inside Maya’s head. For a hopeful moment, she looks like she’s about to say something. But she doesn’t. She just smiles, sadly. 

After that, they don’t talk about Maya’s clothes much, if at all.

 

***

 

It’s a Saturday, one of their weekend sleepovers, and Riley is hanging off her bed upside down, reading from a poetry book. She’s outlined silver in the moonlight, and her eyebrows are furrowed in concentration; Maya is sitting next to her, straight up against the edge of the bed, drawing sunflowers in her sketchpad. Riley’s mouth has been open with an adoring smile through the whole book, and before reading each page, she always looks over to make sure Maya is paying attention. Which she always is.

“Oh, I like this. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy.” Riley’s voice is slow and purposeful and fills the whole room, vibrates across Maya’s skin in a way that makes her shiver. Riley pauses - grinds her teeth - then sighs, as if in defeat. “And he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.”

Maya holds her breath.

“And you feel like you’ve done something terrible,” Riley says, her voice always getting quieter, “like robbed a liquor store, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired.”

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for-“

Riley looks over, her head rolling across the mattress, hair a waterfall behind her face. And Maya is staring straight ahead, refusing to look over for anything in the world - but she can feel Riley’s eyes boring into her skull, the heat of her breath, the fact that there are just these few, terrible, terrible inches between them - and when Riley asks, all quiet and innocent, “Do you ever feel like that?”, every nerve in Maya’s body is screaming yes, but what she _says_ is “No,” grinding her teeth, “of course not.” Feeling the oppositeness of what she says and what she feels tearing her apart. Feeling Riley’s fingers on her arm for a long, long, second before she pulls away, the space where her hand was suddenly cold, and it takes Maya months to get the image out of her head, what could’ve happened if she’d said _yes_.

 

***

 

Riley and Lucas stay together after their first date. She pulls Maya aside to tell her the two of them are staying out longer, and all Maya does is raise an eyebrow at her, dull and questioning. The look on her face is strangely blank, like she cultivated it on top of something else. Riley debates asking her about it.

But then she spies Lucas and Farkle beyond Maya’s crown of blonde hair, laughing and tantalizingly bright, and decides she’ll talk to Maya later. Lucas is waiting for her! Lucas, who she kissed! 

“Go have fun,” Maya says, lamely, and her voice sounds strange in a way that can’t just be the acoustics of the subway station. “I’ll talk to you later. Okay?”

“Of course,” Riley nods.

She pauses for another moment. Wondering what to do, what’s wrong with Maya. Why her face is so blank. Why her lips are pressed together, like she’s holding back the urge to say something. Why she’s being so weird when they should be celebrating, laughing, exchanging stories - not standing here, silent and brooding, like the eye of a storm. 

Lucas waves at her, over Maya’s head. 

“Okay,” Riley says, finally. A miniature admission of defeat. “I love you, Maya. I’ll call you after.” She squeezes Maya’s hand, wraps her in a hug, and then dashes off toward Lucas. Doesn’t look back at her best friend.

Doesn’t even think about it until hours later. Because, as she pulls up to the boys, everything floods out of her brain except for what just happened, what might be happening when they’re alone.

“Hey, you,” Riley giggles, breathless. Lucas turns, pivoting on one foot, and grins at her; Farkle raises an eyebrow, then prances away, warning Lucas not to put a hand on his woman.

“He’s protective, huh?” Lucas asks, watching him go, and Riley just laughs.

They meander up the steps onto 5th street. Outside, the sun is just starting to set, and fat gray clouds line the sky, releasing the barest warm drizzle of rain. Riley holds her hands out and twirls in the slow drops, feeling them freckle her arms and the slope of her neck, trickling down the back of her dress; Lucas watches her with a one-sided smile, and after a minute, he joins her. The two of them spinning in a light shower, Riley laughing, her heart a flight in her chest like thrushes in spring, and when they stop, Lucas sinks an arm around her waist and pulls her in and kisses her again. And Riley can feel it riding from her chest all the way down her spine, warm and tingling and bright all over, a dizzy happiness in every nerve ending.

This is when she starts to think about Maya. 

Just barely.

They break apart when the rain starts to really pour, all at once and hard enough that Riley gasps. Lucas laughs as he pulls back, and then he drags her under the overhang of a nearby deli, and they go hopping from awning to awning for an hour and a half. Lucas gets her ice cream and they stop to look inside a pet shop and then, when they start to walk back to Riley’s apartment, they leave the safety of the canopies and run shouting through the streets. Kicking up the water from puddles, skating corners, racing on each block. They climb up the stairs soaking wet, Lucas drops her off inside, and Riley flops down on her bed feeling so good she can’t stop singing under her breath.

She opens her phone. No texts from Maya, which is weird. She stares at the screen for a long while, at Maya’s name, trying to coerce herself into calling her best friend. Like she should. Like she promised.

But there is something nagging in the back of her head. Something scared and strange and unwilling to be shared.

So she texts Maya a goodnight instead and goes to sleep, trying to bring back the feeling of well-being that came and went so frustratingly fast.

 

***

 

While all of this is happening, Maya starts to break.

Just a little. A hairline crack that hurts like a bitch, but that no one else would pay attention to. She watches Riley and Lucas leave together, laughing, watches Farkle whirling out the other exit, and is left standing alone on the platform for what feels like forever. That hairline crack happening, then widening, as the world continues to move on without her. People coming and going - the trains starting and stopping - and not one fucking person noticing that she’s left her body, has practically left the earth.

Half an hour later, she leaves. Still numb and thoughtless, unable to get her brain moving. But managing to walk and use her hands okay. She takes the subway back to her house, slogs up the stairs, opens the beer she has stashed under her bed and drinks it while the sky starts to go dark. It’s not bad, but it’s not good, either. It’s more of a tool than a drink - one that leaves her nerves dull and her thoughts drunk-pleasant. Sucks the turmoil, mostly, out of her brain. It starts to rain, and Maya doesn’t really notice. It gets late, and she barely notices that, either. 

Riley doesn’t call. That, she notices.

 

***

 

There are many different breaking points. Moments where the two of them get so close to understanding, then skate right by it. One of them is a Friday at Riley’s apartment, the two of them curled up on the couch watching TV, two weeks after the first date incident. It’s been awkward. But they’re still RileyandMaya, like they’ve always been. Their fingers are intertwined, hands laying together on Maya’s thigh, and Riley is falling asleep on her shoulder even as something blows up on the screen in front of them, even as Maya can feel her heart aching with the knowledge that this means more to one than it does to the other.

“Riley?” 

“Yeah?”

A motorcycle in the movie whines. Maya draws in a shuddering breath, so deep Riley can feel it in her bones, and squeezes her hand until Riley squeezes back. “You know how you read me that poem a while ago?”

Riley nods slowly. “And I asked if you ever felt like that?”

“Yeah.” 

There’s a pause, and it feels like the coalition of everything in the freaking universe.

“I lied,” Maya says, and when it hits her brain, Riley can feel the knowledge of it blossoming in her chest. A heat - a promise - a very tentative, innocent hope.

 

***

 

She never breaks up with Lucas. But every time they kiss, she does start to think more and more of Maya. Starts to put Maya’s face over his, her lips instead of her boyfriend’s, her long blonde hair instead of the stuff on Lucas’ head that she can barely run her fingers through.

And then she starts to realize it’s probably a dangerous practice.

 

***

 

Riley starts to spend more time with Lucas, and Maya pretends not to notice. She really does. Riley deserves to be happy. But every time her best friend ditches her for some stupid boy, Maya can feel the hairline crack from a couple weeks ago widening and widening and widening. Her shorts get shorter, her attitude gets worse. Her brain, at the edges, starts to feel perpetually hazy. She finds boys to push up against lockers and kiss, just for the distraction, just to see what she could possibly be missing out on, and for a while, that works. But then Riley comes to her sun-bright, raving about Lucas, and Maya starts to feel the taste of all those boys rising like bile in her mouth. Moving on to girls doesn’t do much either, although it does feel a little better. 

Maya never says a word about it. Six months ago, Riley would’ve known the moment this happened. But she might be in Australia now for how far apart they feel. 

She feels dirty. And fed up. And suffocating under the amount of things they should be talking through.

But they’re fifteen, and dumb, and blinded by love, and Maya decides she’d prefer feeling like a sinner than losing the only good thing in her life by dragging it down with her.

 

***

 

Matthews notices, even if his daughter refuses to. He keeps Maya after class one day on a Tuesday, while the classroom is lit up bright enough to show all the swirling dust mites, the trails of dirt that people can pull their fingers through, thick on every desk top. Maya can feel what he’s about to say raising goosebumps on her arms; she takes a seat in the front row, watches him clean off the chalkboard for a long time before he turns around and starts to say anything.

“Maya.” 

She nods.

“What’s up with you?”

A shrug. Her eyes fixed on the posters lining the wall, glossy, mostly red, sometimes purple, Cory’s head waving just in front of them. A mixture of fear and concern on his face. He leans forward, a couple feet away, close enough that Maya has trouble bringing him into focus.

“Maya,” he says again, harder this time, and she grimaces. “ _What_ are you doing?”

“I’m staying alive,” she snaps, as if that makes any sense at all. “Trying to. While your daughter is off prancing around God-knows-where with Ranger frickin’ Rick, having the time of her life. What am I supposed to do? She’s leaving me, Matthews! I love her, and she’s leaving me! Listen-“ her voice vibrating, from anger or tears it’s impossible to tell. “- you even said I wasn’t good for her. And she used to not believe you. But now she knows it’s true. And she has a boyfriend. So why would she need me?”

Mr. Matthews goes silent. Stares at her with a look that makes Maya ache all over. 

“Don’t leave my daughter,” he asks quietly.

“Okay, fine.” She slams a hand onto the desk and stands up, all at once, so fast her vision goes black. Her teeth are grinding incessantly, and she’s rubbing stars out of her eyes when she turns and start to walk out of the room. “I’m not giving up. I love her. Whatever.”

 

***

 

“Where’ve you been?” Riley slams her locker shut. On the other side of the door, Maya is leaning against the wall, one hand pushing a mass of dirty blonde curls from her face; it’s just after third period and Riley is feeling impossibly tired, so tired that the whole world is slurred, that the people in the hallway have become one cloud she wants to avoid. But Maya’s expression is clear. She looks positively livid, and her eyes are narrow slits in her face, looking Riley up and down suspiciously. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Sorry,” Riley laughs nervously, trying not to sweat. “I’ve been busy.”

This is, of course, total bullshit. The only thing that could possibly keep them apart is intentional avoidance, and both of them know it damn well. But ever since Maya admitted her lie, and ever since Riley has started kissing Lucas and seeing her best friend, Riley has been so confused that she’s just trying to remove herself from the whole thing. It shouldn’t be this confusing. Her life shouldn’t be so hard. And, well, it gets a little easier when she just doesn’t have to be a part of it.

And she’s obviously been doing a good job avoiding Maya, or she wouldn’t be so mad. Riley feels a surge of guilt - she hates their arguments - but also a certain relief that she hasn’t been figured out. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, turning to face Maya’s glare. “It’s not you.”

“It’s not me,” Maya repeats, disbelieving. “Then what is it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Bullshit,” Maya snaps. “I’m your best friend. You love talking. Talk to me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Maya, it’s complicated.” 

“I know it is.” Maya’s lip twitches. “Which is why we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Whatever -“ the blonde makes a helpless gesture with her hands. “- this is.”

“Maya, I-“ Riley sucks in a deep breath. “I can’t do this now. Okay? I have to go.”

Maya stumbles back like she just got punched in the chest. Practically trips over her own feet on the way out, and Riley can feel the regret rising in her chest like a tidal wave already - but Maya is there and gone and storming away before she can open her mouth, and Lucas is calling her name now from the end of the hallway, and all Riley can think is: _Oh, God._

 

***

 

“Farkle.” Maya is sobbing over the phone, her voice crackling into the receiver like cellophane, wet with tears. It takes Farkle a moment to process: it’s almost 3 am, and he’s still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when Maya starts to talk, saying nothing but his name. An ugly, desperate litany.

“Maya?” He sits up straight; his room is supernaturally dark and he has to fumble around to turn on the lamp, to take a bleary look around all the sharp corners, trying to figure out what’s going on. The wailing increases. Fear raises all the hairs on his arms. “Maya? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Maya croaks, not even pausing to think. “No, I’m not.”

Farkle’s heart starts to beat rapid-fire in his chest. “Stay on the phone, Maya.” He swings his legs off the bed and slinks out into the hallway, holding the phone to his ear so he can hear Maya’s breathing; his parents are away, but Maya’s apartment isn’t far and it sounds urgent enough to come over. He kicks on his shoes, grabs the keys and makes it onto the street in record time. Outside the world is empty and frigid and dark all over: there are no stars this deep in the city, only the cold white winking of streetlights. “Maya?”

“Yes?”

“Stay awake to let me in, okay?” He’s already outside her building. As he pulls up closer, he can see Maya’s window being opened: her blonde head poking out into the street as she looks for his approach, her eyes red, her muscles trembling. Tendons are popping out of the backs of her hands. 

She. Looks. Gutted.

Farkle climbs in through the window, shuts it behind him, and pulls Maya over to the bed. She collapses. Like a rag doll. Like Farkle has never, ever seen.

“Maya?” She heaves for breath, a guttural inhale that echoes through the room. Farkle loops an arm over her shoulder, and she leans into him, head against his chest, her hair smelling like oranges. She looks so sad he can’t even enjoy it. “Maya, are you okay?”

“No,” she says sharply. “No. Not.”

“Why?”

There is a long, long pause. Maya trying to stop up her tears. 

“Oh, God,” she says finally, her voice cracking as she speaks, which is always the saddest part of hearing someone cry, and inside his chest Farkle’s heart breaks just a little. “I hate her.”

It takes a minute.

“No, you don’t,” Farkle mumbles. “You don’t.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s not going to love me anymore. She doesn’t. She has Lucas, she has - everybody - and she doesn’t need me.” Maya heaves in a breath. “And I love her, Farkle, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when she stops loving me, because she will, maybe she has, already, and it doesn’t matter whether I tell her or not, it just doesn’t.”

“It does. I promise.”

“She’s too good for me.”

“No, Maya. You work for each other. She needs you, okay?”

“She doesn’t.”

“Maya.”

“She doesn’t! Farkle, you don’t understand, I-“ The sobs start up again, and her shoulders shake with the force of it this time. Farkle runs a hand down to the small of her back and feels her trembling all over, her skin so hot that it burns through the fabric of her T-shirt.

“Jesus, Maya,” he whispers, horrified; Maya moans into his chest. “We’re going to go to sleep,” he says finally, completely at a loss for what to do. “Okay? And we can figure things out tomorrow.” 

She nods, slowly. But they don’t move for a long time. Maya spends half an hour trying to regain her breath, as the crying slows, and she finally relaxes her vice grip on Farkle’s waist. He stays silent through the whole thing, but runs his fingers through her hair, down her arm, back up again in an act of comfort. Not because he knows what to do, but because it feels right. Because its an instinct he hasn’t had in forever. And he doesn’t totally mind it.

Maya slips out of his grasp, finally, and crawls into bed. Farkle steals through her apartment, brings back a glass of water, and makes sure there’s nothing dangerous in her room before he says goodnight and starts to leave - but with one leg out the window, Maya reaches out and asks him to stay. She has just one eye opened, and her voice is shaking. In the dark, she seems small and more fragile than ever. 

So, resignedly, Farkle climbs back into her room and closes the window again. Maya scoots back toward the wall, leaving space in her bed, and Farkle slides in tentatively. Wondering if she knows what she’s doing. If she’ll be mad in the morning. If she’ll hate him for coming over. For a moment, he considers leaving, just to save the stress.

But then she throws an arm over his chest and lays her head in the crook of his neck without hesitating. And when she says _thank you_ , in a voice so warm it melts Farkle to the bone, he can’t really be anything but in love.

 

***

 

Maya wakes up the next day with a splitting headache, eyelashes crusted together with salt and tears, lips so dry they feel like a desert. She feels disgusting. In more ways than one. In ways it’s too early to think about. The sun is coming through her window so bright it hurts, and she has to rub her eyes with both fists to crack them open; there’s a glass of water on her bedside table, which she starts to reach over and grab, blind, before remembering Farkle is next to her.

“Ah, shit,” she says softly.

Farkle is on his back sleeping like the dead, half his face red, one arm thrown out onto the mattress where Maya was just sleeping. She looks him over for a second, feeling embarrassed and guilty as fuck, then downs the water with an exasperated sigh and climbs over him, very carefully, to make her way back onto the floor. He doesn’t even stir.

She picks up the glass and carries it to the kitchen, refills it, brushes her teeth, puts up her hair and then comes back in. Farkle is still sleeping; he has six blankets piled on top of him, and the sun is setting everything in Maya’s room on fire, but the boy doesn’t stop snoring for a second. Maya sets down the water, then tentatively pokes him in the ribs. All he does is shiver slightly.

“Farkle,” she hisses. Another poke. Nothing. “Farkle!” She flicks him in the forehead, and finally he startles awake, sitting up so fast they bash heads. “Jesus!” Maya reels back, seeing stars, and Farkle stares at her with a horrified look. 

“It’s fine,” she assures him, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He glances at her for a section to make sure, then downs the glass of water and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.

“So.”

“So?”

“So, how long is it gonna take you to talk about what happened last night?” 

“A while.”

Farkle sighs. Puts the glass back down.

“Maya,” he says, something urgent just under the words, “I’ve never seen you like that.”

“I know.”

“So it must be big.”

“It is.”

“So why won’t you tell her?”

“She won’t listen to me.” Anger bubbles in Maya’s chest. “She won’t even talk to me. She’s been spending all her time with fucking Ranger Rick. She’s avoiding me and I don’t know why.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She gets up, starts slamming things on her desk, trying to make enough noise to get out of her own head. “It’s her fucking problem, I don’t know, Farkle, I love her, and I’m trying so hard and-“

“Holy shit, I gotta go.” Farkle springs up, grabs his phone and gives Maya a kiss on the cheek so fast she can’t even shoo him off. “Riley’s outside your window. Haha! Good luck!”

And with that, he dashes out her bedroom door, and two seconds later, Riley climbs in through her window.

 

***

 

It goes like this: 

Riley knows what she’s going to do long before she does it. So when bursts into Maya’s room, she has a plan mapped out in her head, and thank God it goes just like it’s supposed to. Maya is alone in her room, is watching when Riley swings one leg over the windowsill and hops in.

“What’re you doing here?” 

Riley doesn’t give herself time to think, or to answer.

She crosses the room in three quick strides, grabs Maya by the front of her T-shirt, pulls her in, and kisses her.

And. Holy. Fuck.

There’s zero resistance. Maya swells into her hands, stumbles forward, kissing her back, warm and passionate and not at all gentle. It’s not tame and it’s not soft, and Riley couldn’t be happier about either of these things because the feeling when Maya opens her mouth and gasps is like nothing else, sends something like a hit of dopamine straight to the pit of her stomach. Every fucking nerve in her body is firing on all cylinders. Maya wrenches Riley’s hand out of her shirt and puts both of hers to Riley’s face, one on the curve her jaw and the other tugging at a handful of her hair; Riley’s hands flail for a second, completely lost, and then find the waistband of Maya’s sweats and pull her forward until there’s no space left between them. 

It’s so right. So intense. So fucking strange.

Maya’s chest is heaving, she can feel it, and they’re stumbling back towards Maya’s bed, Riley’s legs hitting the edge of the mattress and she slams down, pulling Maya with her. Her thumbs brush the rise of Maya’s hips, the lace of underwear settled just under her stomach, and Maya melts in her hands, breaks apart to suck in a rattling breath before Riley pulls her back in. She’s always been innocent, but now, here, there doesn’t seem to be an end. And she doesn’t want to. Not with Maya on top of her, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, not while Riley still feels like a lightning bolt, while her fingers are making new trails up Maya’s chest. Oh God oh God oh God. She’s going into cardiac arrest. Maya’s teeth grazing her bottom lip, hair brushing her cheek. Heat burns in the bottom of her stomach.

And then the world stops.

Her phone goes off.

And goes off again.

In her front pocket, where both of them can feel it. So that Maya breaks off half an inch, and cold air rushes in to fill that space. And it’s impossible not to feel the significance of this moment - the second where Maya pulls away, and something comes in her place that makes Riley shiver all over, sucks the sense of well-being right out of her body, because Maya isn’t _there_ anymore, not like she should be, not like she used to, and it’s all Riley’s fault.

It’s all her fucking fault.

And she can feel every ounce of magic drain out of the room.

“Maya, I am so sorry,” she whispers, tears in her eyes, because both of them know who called.

“You can’t,” Maya says, although it’s a supposed be a question. Her voice is flat.

“I can’t,” Riley agrees, and her voice breaks.

Maya sighs, and Riley thinks she has never seen her best friend look so damn sad.

She drags a finger down the curve of Riley’s jaw. Eyes searching. Inhaling slowly, taking the breath right out of Riley’s lungs. Leans in, something strange and ominous and full of love in her eyes, to kiss Riley again - soft and sweet, just barely - and stays like this for a long second, while Riley’s heart jackhammers in her chest, before she whispers with a smile: “Go fuck yourself, honey.”

 

***

 

And with that, she leaves.

Out the door. Two seconds flat. White t-shirt, blonde whirlwind, the door slamming so hard it rattles every wall.

And Riley is totally fucking lost.

She knows where she is, physically. Maya’s bed, rooted there for hours, mind blank, fingers numb. But her chest is a black hole. So is her brain. Sucking up light and fuzzy at the edges, pulling in thought after thought before any of them can start to make sense. After Maya leaves, she can hear a shriek from out in the hallway, hysterical laughing - someone who sounds a lot like Farkle shushing her before the front door slams open, then closed. 

So the house is empty. So everything hurts. So Riley finds a way to curl into herself, the little dark spot between her ribs, those thin slivers of flesh between bone. So she ignores Lucas calling, and Farkle calling, and her mom calling, the first time, until her hands stop shaking enough to pick up and Topanga comes by in a storm of wet hair and clothes to drag her out of Maya’s room. As they leave, Riley thinks she might be leaving these invisible bloodstains all over the pillows, the sheets - probably Maya’s shirt, when she had it in her hands.

“I don’t know what I did,” Riley says softly as they roll down Maya’s street, the tires-on-pavement rumbling all the way into her bones, head against the window, feeling like an open coffin. Like a fucking grave, with Maya’s hair still threaded in the stitches of her shirt.

“I kissed her,” she says, louder this time, and Topanga’s hand on her leg tightens. “I kissed her. Once. More than once. Because every time I’m looking at Lucas, I’m looking at her. And she’s so far away, Mom. Maybe she likes him. Maybe she likes someone else. But it’s like we’re speaking different languages. We’ve never… needed… a _translator._ I thought - I don’t know, I break up with Lucas, she gets happier. Maybe they date. She’s so awkward around him, maybe that’s it. She probably likes him. Everyone else thinks so. And I want things to go back to the way they were. But nothing I do works. I can’t spend time with her either. Because she just keeps getting weirder and weirder and I keep seeing her instead of Lucas more and more. So I kissed her. I did it. And I - she didn’t - I’m not a cheater.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not.”

“But you kiss Lucas and you see her. And what happened when you really did kiss her?”

“I don’t know. It was like - “

And Riley stops. Because how do you describe something like that? There’s nothing to know about a kiss before it happens, at least not a kiss like that - the kind that makes everything go backwards and upside down, makes your head hurt it’s so important, there’s nothing to _know,_ it just happens and happens and happens. 

And it happened. 

Riley’s heart squeezes in on itself. And tears start to prickle in her eyes, salty and searingly hot, tears that won’t stop making trails down her cheeks no matter how forcefully she scrubs them away. She’s crying so hard it makes the whole world blurry, and trying to breathe through it besides, but every inhale is wet-ragged with tears, and there’s this terrible heat blossoming in her chest, all the way down to her fingers, and the flood of confusion is fucking unstoppable. The world rocks and swirls. Riley leans forward blind, rests her head against the dashboard, feels the engine rumbling through her skull, and the buzzing in her head removes her from her pain. Just barely. 

“Oh, God, Mom,” she chokes, the words thick in her throat. “What did I do?”

And Topanga can’t find a way to answer.

 

***

 

“Maya, stop.”

She doesn’t stop. Of course she doesn’t. And it’s not even on purpose. But her legs are burning, her feet are sore, her heart hurts, and she can’t stop walking, grinding her shoes into the sidewalk, angry energy threaded through every bone. It’s way too early to be up, and the whole city is wet and howling with wind, biting into Maya’s bare arms, sharp against her face, raising goosebumps everywhere. And she can’t stop walking. Farkle is sprinting after her, struggling to keep up as Maya takes on street after street. “Maya!”

She spits out an exhale, ignores him, drags her feet over the sidewalk. Feeling the grittiness through her shoes. Farkle's walking briskly behind her, he has been for the past ten minutes, and when Maya turns a violent corner past their neighborhood juicery, he finally leaps forward and grabs her arm. Maya slams to a halt. Farkle stops too, so fast and so surprised that he almost tilts over, and Maya has to jab her elbow into his solar plexus (half to stop his fall, half for revenge).

“Jeez,” Farkle gasps, hands on his knees. Maya fixes her gaze on the horizon and says nothing as he catches his breath, straightens up, puts a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. What was that?”

“She - I - I can’t believe her.” Maya shakes her head, the blonde tendrils whipping around her face, and feels a new rush of anger bringing heat to her cheeks. “This cannot be happening.” Farkle is chewing on his lip; Maya curls her hands into fists, and those fucking tears start to build in the corner of her eyes again. There’s a bench on the left that she stumbles into, blurry, and pulls her knees up to her chest. “Why would she _do_ that?”

Farkle is sitting next to her, and she can’t see his face, but when he speaks it’s impossible not to hear the frown in his voice - “I’m sorry, Maya.” And Maya breathes in, so hard it hurts. “I mean - well, she must have feelings for you. In one way or another, right? If she kissed you? If she’s being weird?”

“Oh, please,” Maya snorts. “She’s so obsessed with Huckleberry it’s disgusting. She can’t see three inches in front of her if his face isn’t at the other end.”

“Maybe she’s filling you in.”

“If she was filling me in, wouldn’t she have used someone, oh, I don’t know, actually _like_ me?”

“I’m a genius, I don’t know anything about emotions. But she does love you.”

“She wouldn’t be putting me through this shit if she did.”

“Riley’s confused.”

“So am I!”

“Do you want advice?”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll listen to it, but sure, whatever.”

“I think you need space.” The thought of it raises all the hairs on Maya’s arm; her heart aches at the thought _more_ space, because it’s been so long since she’s known a world so definitively _without_ Riley. And mostly because she knows it’s true. “Just a couple days. To think. To let her explain what’s going on.”

And part of Maya knows he’s right. 

And part of her feels like telling him he doesn’t understand anything: how it is to live like this, having everything flipped around over your head, having so much love under your skin it feels like you’re going to burst, feeling like that poem, feeling like a car crash, exploding in so many different stages every second of the day.  
But all she does is nod, defeated, because saving her and Riley’s friendship is always first. It always is.

 

***

 

Honey: Maya?

Peaches: yeah

Honey: oh, hi

Honey: Maya, I’m sorry.

Peaches: i’m sure

Peaches: u can give me an explanation and let me think for a while

Honey: long or short?

Peaches: whichever 

Honey: I keep kissing Lucas and it’s like I’m kissing you instead of him. And I keep going out into the world and seeing you in the absolute weirdest places. And I don’t have everything figured out like you. But I do love you. And I am sorry.

Honey: Maya?

And on the other end of the line Maya is flat on her back feeling like death, all the lights in her room turned off, the empty bottles of beer collecting under her bed, trying to think of a better way to say _fuck you_ than what she does say, which is

Peaches: I love you too

 

***

 

The next six days are strange at best. Riley feels like the whole world has stopped: without Maya she has a hard time unfolding her hands, or asking for anything, or getting out of bed. And Maya spray-paints her first public piece on the side of Riley’s building when it’s 3 AM, sleeps way too late, forgets to eat for hours and hours. It’s the weirdest feeling - having this part of you, dimmed, that has never run out of battery before. Has never been gone for so long, and so decisively. And most of all, on _purpose_.

It hurts. But, surprisingly, life goes on.

The boys split their time between the two of them. They’re afraid of what will happen if they take sides, and only Farkle even knows exactly what happened. Mostly he stays with Maya and Lucas with Riley, and Zay calls them both in the mornings and tells them dumb jokes for hours and hours. But Farkle does come over to Riley’s, of course, and drags her out for ice cream in the sad September drizzle until she starts to laugh again. And Lucas shows up at Maya’s apartment on a Tuesday night and gives her a hug, not saying anything when she snaps at him, or even when she spends the whole night drawing while he pulls the bottles out from under her bed.

He can see over the top of Maya’s sketchpad to the edges of the paper, and it’s filled with these beautiful graphite sketches. Sunflowers and sunflowers and sunflowers.

 

***

 

Loving Maya has never felt like more of a war. Seeing her face sets off atomic bombs all over Riley’s body. Catching glimpses of her hair in the hallway makes her positively nauseous. Talking to her is so scary that Riley never gets up the courage to do it, but going home and _not_ having talked to her is somehow even worse.

It’s limbo. Purgatory. That strange gray space that Riley thinks she might trade in for anything else, anything at all.

And it won’t stop fucking raining: this annoying, thin drizzle that’s not enough to have fun in but enough to be bothersome, summer-warm and sticky and never, never ending. It matches Riley’s mood. The charcoal clouds, the unrelenting storm. She’s trying to be positive, _really,_ but it’s just - difficult. So she lets herself feel bad and weird and sort of messy inside, just for another few hours, she promises herself, or until Maya starts talking again.

It’s lunch, and Riley’s forehead is pressed to her locker. She doesn’t feel hungry and doesn’t feel like being asked yet again how she’s doing, so she trailed over to the empty hallways, and is staring outside the big window to her right, trying not to think. The metal is cool against her skin, and outside, puddles are forming in the dented sidewalk pavement, like splashes of quicksilver. The world around her is dead quiet. And Riley hates it, but the alternative isn’t really better.

“Hey.”

Riley blinks, trying to clear the sleeplessness out of her eyes. It’s Maya’s voice, but it can’t be her. Not here. Not after avoiding her for so long. She _cannot_ get her hopes up. It’s just her stupid over-excited Rileytown brain.

She turns on one foot. Maya is at the end of the hallway looking like she came straight from hell, black half-moons under her eyes, hair wild, hands shoved in the pockets of a pair of paint-stained sweatpants. Her nails are covered in chipped blue polish, sneakers scuffed white at the edges, and when Riley finally meets her eyes - bluer than they’ve ever been and dark-lashed, uncertain - Maya’s mouth curves down into this terrible, sad frown. Her whole face rearranging itself to fit the weight on her shoulders.

“Hi,” Riley says stupidly. She’s so stunned the words only half come out. “Hi. I, uh. I. Maya, I-“

And Maya does something that sounds like a sigh but is heavy with tears and practically throws herself into Riley’s arms, hugging her so hard that Riley almost loses her breath, head buried in Riley’s shoulder and arms around her ribs. Her hair smells like the ocean and Riley is drowning in all that blonde, but Maya is _here,_ lovely and in love and crushing her, closer than she’s been in weeks, and Riley can barely think beyond the haze of her relief. “Maya-“

“Shut up,” Maya says into her hair. The sound is muffled, but she’s obviously on the verge of tears. “Shut up, Riley, please. I love you but you know this doesn’t make it right.”

And inside her chest, Riley’s heart is falling in on itself, cataclysmic, but she has one hand on the place where she can feel Maya’s pulse through the bones in her back, and all she can find the breath to say is “I know.”

 

***

 

Maya grabs for her hand after school, and they walk home with their fingers interlaced. Nails going blue-red, blue-red, blue-red. Tendons are flexing on the back of Maya’s hand, and there’s a certain tension in her fingers, and she’s looking at the ground as she walks, hair shielding her face from view - but it’s raining, and they’re together. Hopping from awning to awning.

 

***

 

Riley looks down at Maya’s hand in hers, and everything feels so strangely, terrifyingly, undeniably important.

 

***

 

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

And the kissing again.

 

***

 

Riley wakes up, and it’s the end of the world.

She sits bolt upright, the air flooding from her lungs, and heaving for breath in the midst of her coughs.

The whole world is silent and dark. Outside the bay window only a few lights glitter, a cold white and stark against the black sky; tires squeal, and a dog is barking from across the street, muffled by brick and glass but still enough to raise goosebumps on Riley’s arms. There are clothes scattered all over the floor, pillows, water bottles. Moonlight is pouring over everything. And Maya is in her bed. Shirtless and fast asleep, hair taking over the pillows, her fingers curled around the thin, flute-like bones of Riley’s wrist. Her friendship ring a sharp red in the darkness.

Oh. God. 

Heat is bubbling up under Riley’s skin, and she throws off the blankets and slips to the floor before it can take over - that familiar pressure behind her eyes, heart thumping roughly in her chest, the edges of her vision blurring. Puts her head between her knees until the feeling passes. The bay window is open, and there’s a cold breeze swirling in that sort of draws the turmoil out of her body. Maya’s sketchbook is on the floor. Riley reaches out, pulls it over with her foot, and flips it open as she tries not to think.

Central Park. The trees groaning in a storm, the sky heavy with swelling clouds, and a girl sprinting down the path to safety - jacket pulled over her head, rain streaming down her back, illuminated by a flash of lightning. The next page: Lucas’ hand on the edge of a desk, fingers curled, every muscle and tendon clearly defined. A brindle dog with big brown eyes. Lilies, roses, carnations, sunflowers. Wet pavement and rain-damp sneakers. The side of a big glass building reflecting the sun. Riley’s hair against her paisley pillows. Riley’s grin floating in an empty page. Riley biting into an ice cream cone, at the zoo, getting ready in Maya’s bathroom, at the aquarium with her face pressed up to the glass, saying hi to the fishes. 

And always more sunflowers.

Riley leans her head back against the mattress, stares at the glow in the dark stars pasted up on her ceiling. Thinking about Maya. Thinking about Lucas. Thinking about the fact that she’s a cheater. Thinking about why all this is happening. Thinking about what’s going on inside Maya’s head, what she’s been missing through these weird months, how much she loves her best friend. Thinking about Sagittarius, in the upper right corner of her room. 

It’s the end of the world. It’s the end of the fucking world. Riley can feel it in her heart: this crushing ache, all the hope draining out of her. She picks Lucas and she breaks Maya. She picks Maya and loses Lucas. And there’s no right answer. There’s no way out. She wants Maya, okay, sure - but good people don’t cheat on their boyfriends and _leave_ them. Right? They just don’t. They either A) don’t cheat on their boyfriends, or B) they do, and they come back to work it out. Always working it out. Always leaving the sinners hanging. Maya being the sinner, and Riley being the sinner, and poor Lucas the Good being the sorry son of a bitch dangled off this cliff without even knowing, still smiling that summery smile, the one that Riley always uses her best friend’s face to paint over. 

Maya is awake. The mattress is groaning, and the blonde rolls over to find Riley sitting straight up, eyes glued to the ceiling, crying these silent tears. Maya presses two fingers to her chest, where she knows Riley’s heart is beating too hard to be healthy. And they’re so close to it. To finding the middle ground. To getting rid of Lucas. To happily ever after.

But Riley is crying, and there is so much to work through, so much that they might not be able to handle.

And Maya - she can’t put her best friend through that.

“It doesn’t have to be me.”

Riley freezes. 

“It doesn’t have to be me,” Maya repeats, ignoring the dread that wells up in her stomach. “You like Lucas. I get it. Seeing me, it was probably just… just a phase, or something.” Riley is staring at her, wide-eyed. “It’s okay, Riley. It was nothing.”

This is a lie. But the relief that floods Riley’s body, pulling up that tearful smile, is so obvious that in this moment Maya doesn’t even feel guilty. Riley is okay. Not crying anymore. Still loves her - in a way that Maya doesn’t need, but will take anyway, because she takes what she gets as long as Riley is happy.

“Thank you,” Riley says, and her smile is brilliant. “It was nothing. It was.”

 

***

 

“What’s that?”

“What? Oh.” Maya twists her foot. It’s a summery eighty degrees out, she’s wearing shorts, and Riley is sitting across from her sucking the hell out of a mango smoothie. They’re nineteen now; Maya is studying art on the West Coast, and Riley is majoring in education at John Hopkins, and they never go a day without calling each other. Riley is still dating Lucas, and Maya has been out since sophomore year and picking up girl after girl - but of course she still loves Riley. Of course she does. It’s fucking annoying, but it always has been, always will be, the truth. Seeing her in person for the first time in months - it sends Maya’s heart flying into her throat. She’s been smiling nonstop since they met up. Since Riley grabbed for her hand again just like when they were kids, started telling her stupid jokes, dragged her to the juice bar by her apartment, sat her down and said _tell me everything._ And this is where they start, apparently: Riley staring at the tattoo on Maya’s ankle, wide-eyed and incredulous. “It’s nothing,” Maya says, embarrassed.

“It’s beautiful!” Riley squeals, reaching out to brush it with her foot. Well, it _is_ pretty, it had to be: a cluster of two sunflowers, one of them facing straight out and the other at a 3/4 angle, the leaves bursting all over Maya’s skin, meticulously shaded and a sunny golden-yellow.

It’s still an open wound. Not the tattoo itself (which Maya took from her eighth grade sketchbook). But the whole thing. The kisses. Her acting out. The boys that came between the two of them.The world turning itself upside down. Being in love with Riley. Giving up her only chance. That part, it still stings. Always will.

Maya has been living with the weight of it for years already.

“You know sunflowers are my favorite?” Riley asks, stabbing at the slushy part of her smoothie. 

Oh.

Oh.

_How_ is it still like this? Years and years later, the both of them grown up now, and still close, Maya still so in love with her she can’t see straight - and Riley is here shoving spoonfuls of mango ice in her mouth while Maya’s whole world gets flipped _again._ A very blurry consciousness builds in the back of Maya's head; with a start, she realizes she's staring. At the curve of Riley's jaw, her hair in the sunlight. And she knows she's zoning out, so far away it almost doesn't feel like she's tethered to her body. Like all the blood has left her veins, every thought has left her brain. It's acutely depressing. But what is there to do? Maya's heart has fallen out through her feet, is _so_ not beating anymore, and Riley doesn't love her.

And that's the way it is. 

“Is something wrong?” 

Maya snaps to attention. “No,” she says, laughing nervously, and pretends not to notice Riley raising an eyebrow at her. “I’m okay.” She scratches at the ink with the side of her shoe and meets Riley’s eyes: the same dark brown stare they’ve always been, warm and full of love, curious and bright in the afternoon sun. It makes her heart ache a little. More than a little.

“I know,” Maya adds. Her heart is pounding, but it is, without a doubt, the right thing to say. 

Riley looks at her, expectantly; there’s a faint smile on her face, and Maya is struggling not to fall in love with her all over again. 

“I knew,” Maya says, trying not to cry. “I always did.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm drowning in prompts and slow as hell, but my offer always stands:
> 
> if y'all want me to write something specific, send it out to philtaatos.tumblr.com. (i post lots of updates and ideas there too.) or send other things! send me vents about that annoying boy in your life, or asks for advice, or compliments, or literally whatever you want. i love love love talking to you guys, and i promise i don't bite. hearing from you makes my day!
> 
> comments/kudos/critique is always, always appreciated. thank you for reading (& for those of you that have been around for a while, sticking with me). have a lovely 2016.


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